The central theme of Lord Tennyson's Crossing the Bar is the speaker's wish for a peaceful death and his acceptance of said death. He compares his passing to a ship leaving the harbor and embarking on a journey out towards sea. He wants "no sadness of farewell" because he has accepted the inevitability of death. The title itself refers to a sandbar, and he uses this literal crossing of ships in contrast with a figurative crossing of the soul into heaven. Heaven is evident as the destination because of his "hope to see [his] Pilot face to face", face being capitalized because of its reference to God.
This poem wasn't so bad, and it was nice to finally read a poem that portrayed death as not such a bad thing. It was also mildly soothing, in a weird sort of way.
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